Gender-specific barriers and facilitators to heart failure self-care: A mixed methods study
Section snippets
Methods
We explored HF self-care in a cross-sectional, comparative mixed methods study conducted in 2008 in Melbourne, Australia. In-depth interviews were used to elicit self-care behaviors and to explore the barriers and facilitators of self-care. The qualitative analysis was considered primary in this study (QUAL quan). After the interview data were analyzed, the results were verified in the quantitative data obtained from the same sample and at the same time.
Results
Although a purposive sampling strategy was used to obtain an equal number of men and women, only 8 women and 19 men completed the study. We enrolled 40 persons and 27 completed the qualitative interview and all the quantitative surveys. Two additional participants completed all the surveys but not the interview, so they were not included here. Eleven who agreed to participate failed to do so because of ill health (n = 6), an inability to contact them after they signed the consent (n = 2), or
Discussion
The finding that men and women are comparable in the extent to which they adhere to treatment is not new; several others have found a similar result (Heo et al., 2008, Holst et al., 2007, Lee et al., 2009). What is new is identification of gender-specific barriers and facilitators that greatly influenced self-care. In this sample, women were more uncertain about their symptoms and tentative about taking action without guidance from a provider while the men felt more confident in their self-care
Conclusion
The results of this study support our prior conclusion that gender-specific differences in specific self-care behaviors are minimal. It does not appear that gender differences in self-care are responsible for the gender differences in outcomes known to exist. However, there are distinct gender differences in the decisions made in interpreting and responding to symptoms. These decisions are influenced by factors that are unique to men and women, including self-care confidence, the importance of
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